Home business teaching children responsibility and valuable life lessons.
“The kids have been wanting to have chickens for a couple years,” said mother of Little Minion Egg Producers, Patricia Arkinstall-Jordan.
Her children Lucas Jordan, 10, and Hailey Jordan, 8, look after 29 chickens, collect their eggs, and sell the eggs weekly in Langdon Alta.
Lucas and Hailey are expected to feed and water the chickens twice a day, collect the eggs and wash the eggs after school, and clean the chicken coop.
“We wanted to get chickens,” Hailey said.
She added, “We have to pay for our feed and everything, if we already got that stuff, all the extra we put into our savings.
“My favourite part is we get to come out and hangout with them.”
Caring for chickens and selling the eggs was a good opportunity for Arkinstall-Jordan to teach her children how to budget money and how to be responsible for something else, and how to be caring.
She added, herself and her husband had gotten tired of hearing I want, I want, I want, from their children, as children now don’t see cash anymore, they only see debit cards.
“They can earn a little bit of money, just to show them that things cost money, and that mom and dad don’t have an unlimited bank account,” Arkinstall-Jordan said.
Arkinstall-Jordan’s children had wanted new saddles, and instead of her and her husband jumping in to purchase the new saddles, they wanted their children to buy them on their own and learn how to budget their money.
The Little Minion Egg Producers started by selling eggs to close friends and family, however, word quickly spread around Langdon.
The Little Minion Egg Producers now have 15 returning customers weekly.
“It was crazy, we didn’t have enough for the orders we were getting,” Arkinstall-Jordan added, “Then pretty soon we had too many eggs, that’s when I shared it on Facebook.”
The Little Minion Egg Producers have received more community support than they thought would be possible, with farmers donating straw bales to line the chicken’s nests, to Buy-Low Foods in Langdon donating produce to feed to the chickens.
“It’s funny how many people say it’s amazing what we’re doing with the kids, but we weren’t doing it for attention, we were doing it for the experience to teach them,” Arkinstall-Jordan said.
“It’s been successful because they’re kids. We’re very adamant with them that they need to do the chores, if they are going to do this, they have to do it on their own.
“I help them clean the coop, but they have to be responsible for these animals, they have to make sure they are fed and watered,” she said.
Arkinstall-Jordan said at first her children were excited to be business owners, and they thought they would be rich in no time.
The first time her children went to purchase chicken feed, shavings, and straw they each had $2 left to spend on a Slurpee.
“They thought well that’s not bad, we have enough to get a treat, so they were happy,” Arkinstall-Jordan said.
Arkinstall-Jordan has noticed that learning how to budget money has made her children aware of the cost of things.
“If Lucas want’s a Lego set, he’ll sit down and figure out how many eggs he has to sell to get to that point,” she said.
For her, the best part of watching her children sell eggs is seeing them grow, and go from expecting something, to planning how they are going to save enough money to purchase something.
However, there have been many unforeseen challenges that Lucas and Hailey have had to overcome to get their business to become successful.
Snow has become a challenge, because the chickens are free range when it snows they hover over the step of the coop.
Arkinstall-Jordan said, “Lucas dug paths for them to run around in the snow.”
She added, “This is quite the adventure.
“We say thank you to the community because the kids wouldn’t have been able to have the positive experience without their support.”
Lucas and Hailey sell the eggs in Langdon on Wednesday evenings.
For more information on the Little Minion Egg Producers or to order eggs, please visit the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Little-Minion-Egg-Producers-741925779480003/.
-30-
